Conceptual approaches to determining the place of special psychological knowledge in the system of legal and other special knowledge in the investigation of fraud

Abstract

In contemporary scientific literature on criminal procedure and criminalistics, considerable attention is devoted to conceptual approaches to determining the position of special psychological knowledge within the overall system of legal and other special knowledge employed in fraud investigations. Deception and abuse of trust, as methods of influencing the victim, necessitate a profound analysis of subjective interpersonal factors, cognitive processes involved in forming a distorted perception of reality, motivational mechanisms underlying decisions to transfer property, and the psychological regularities that condition the formally voluntary character of will expression. The blurring of boundaries between legal qualification and psychological assessment is evident in the need to establish the content of deception, the degree of the victim’s misconception, the presence of heightened suggestibility, or a state of dependency or helplessness. This is particularly relevant amid the transformation of crimes toward remote forms, social engineering, and manipulative techniques in digital environments and the investment sphere, which exploit cognitive biases, emotional states, and personality characteristics. Among doctrinal positions, the following are distinguished: the procedural-functional approach, which ties the status of psychological knowledge to specific investigative situations and its implementation through expert examination or specialist participation; the epistemological approach, which emphasizes that systematized scientific knowledge of human mental activity – with its own methodology and categorical apparatus – cannot be reduced to legal analysis; and the integrative approach, which reflects the interpenetration of legal and psychological cognition in complex examinations, where the division of competencies represents a methodological abstraction that does not correspond to practical realities. Special psychological knowledge fulfills multiple functions, including expert evaluation of a victim’s capacity to adequately perceive information and control their actions; analysis of the deception mechanism as the purposeful formation of false attitudes and an illusion of benefit; examination of trust as a readiness for vulnerability in interpersonal relations; psychological profiling of fraudsters with regard to their communication skills, empathy, verbal intelligence, and risk propensity; assessment of testimony reliability considering retrospective memory distortions, guilt, and shame; differentiation from psychiatric aspects within the bounds of mental normality; integration with linguistic analysis of communicative intent and the impact of utterances; and consultative support for the tactics of investigative actions and victimhood prevention. The discussion addresses methodological challenges in standardizing forensic psychological examinations for this category of cases, verifying conclusions about intangible mental processes, the admissibility of questions that do not predetermine legal qualification, the influence of special fraud compositions on the development of knowledge regarding financial behavior and digital trust, and the role of such knowledge in the criminalistic characterization of the crime method and the analysis of group dynamics within organized communities. This interdisciplinary reflection facilitates the formation of a holistic concept that overcomes the fragmentation between legal and psychological sciences, refines normative foundations and methodological support, and enhances the effectiveness of evidence, the individualization of liability, and crime prevention in an era of increasingly complex manipulative schemes. The abstract enables the identification of the article’s core content, evaluation of its relevance to law enforcement practice, and an informed decision regarding consultation of the full text.